Winter

Recovering in the slanted light

The green-gold miscanthus is splayed out by snow. There’s red and blue-green in there too, if you get up close. The colors braided in the strands, some miracle in the depths of winter. Some bit of color against the brown-speckled snow and tawny field grass. A glimpse to remind me that this life is beautiful if you step outside of yourself, if you brush up against a blue spruce or lift your head to the hawthorn and its bangles of red berries like bracelets on thorned limbs.

Winter says, “Put your boots on, old girl, and a thick coat, thermal gloves, wool scarf, and pull the beret over your ears. You’ll be ready then. It’s not that hard if you have these things. And if you have boots, coat, scarf, gloves, hat, you owe it to the universe to join it. How else will you know the world?”

We have more things to say, Winter and I, about heart attacks and the frozen ground and the cardinals clotting the redbud tree. The cars drive by, pushing the snow into slushy borders along the church road. Winter tells me the sun is still there, don’t despair. These are the days you should search for words, buried in the snow. The Latin and Greek roots are still alive—like those of the roses and salvia. Winter says, the rooted words spread out and deepen, pinched below the hardened topsoil, seeking nutrients.

Winter says, “Don’t give up, even though the season of death plows the bodies of those you love—mother, father, sister, too many friends.” The mourning catches my breath. Grieving the colder places where you cannot bury your loved ones until spring. The memories cling like static electricity. If I were able to say goodbye, if it were possible, it was no less easy. And regret becomes a heavier coat in which to walk for those who passed without that chance to comfort, to say it's okay to go, to say I will be strong without you, don’t you worry. I held my mother’s hand for hours on her last day like this. It’s ok to let go, Mom. It’s ok.

I tell Winter I am tired. I am 65 now, and the grieving doesn’t abate. She knows this; Winter is old, too. Winter has buried the woolly mammoth with a gleaming tusk to be discovered millennia after it collapsed as the glaciers retreated. Winter travels in a misty white cloak, a weighty angel. She has seen the planes crash, ice on their wings, and plunge into frigid waters. She has followed adventurers with tenderness and awe, but remains committed to her duty, calling on arctic blasts to sweep across the ragged mountains.

Winter says, “We are not strangers to one another. Not to poets and scholars, not to the homeless and men in top hats and spats. Each season begins and ends. You know this.”

I tell Winter, “I’m not afraid.”

Spark a fire, flip a light switch, light a candle. Hold your hand up to the keyhole and the drafty window. Winter says, I am here now. You are not alone. Make your world beautiful. Make it your own.